Judgment
by ElliotJA
Summary: The Doctor has just regenerated, and believing himself to have destroyed Gallifrey and his people, he must now decide where he stands in a very different universe.
The Doctor's current body had been through centuries of conflict and was worn frail, and so it came as little surprise to him as, standing by the TARDIS console, he felt and saw the first signs of the regenerative process begin to activate within his tired frame...

...The fire dispersed. New eyes opened in a new body, and new lungs sharply inhaled air through a new mouth. His thoughts were a confused jumble. He was in the TARDIS, he had just regenerated...and then he let loose a cry filled with grief and rage and sank to his knees, the memory of what he had done agonizingly fresh: The barn, the Moment, Gallifrey ceasing to exist in a brilliant flash, taking all of the Daleks and Time Lords with it into oblivion...No, not all the Time Lords. He was still here. Why? "Why am I still here?" he howled, not even noticing his new voice. "I should have burned with the rest of them!"

Sobbing, he got to his feet and stumbled off down a corridor, tearing off his bandolier and grimy old coat and discarding them on the floor as he trudged deeper into the vessel. It had been his home for so many years, so many lives, ever since he first ran away from the people now dead at his hands. He had wanted to be free of them so badly, and now he truly was free, forever. The rest of the universe was safe, the Time War finally over; many would no doubt breath a great sigh of relief that both races were gone. Even the Doctor could not deny that part of him was glad...but the lonliness still ate away at him.

Could he even still be the Doctor now? His last body had not been worthy of the name, that much had been decided very early on, and it seemed to him hopelessly naive to think for an instant that a simple regeneration into a different appearance could cleanse the enormity of his actions. "Who am I?" he muttered, and remembered asking that same question before, the first words of his eighth incarnation, only then he had had no memory of his past. Now he remembered too much...

OOOOOOOO

 _The Moment was ready. Standing in the ancient barn, eyes squeezed tightly shut and telling himself there was no other way, the Doctor placed his hand on the red button and pressed downward. There was a roar like nothing he had ever heard before, and the air around him exploded into blood and fire. It was the doom of a world and its' people, one final, ultimate blood sacrifice to halt a conflict that had made time and space bleed._

 _Then he saw them emerging from the red flames. Eight figures stood in a ring around him, and their faces were those of his past selves, twisted in mocking hate. "So, no more, eh?" his first incarnation sneered. "Yes...no more Gallifrey! No more Doctor! What do you have to say for yourself, hmm?"_

 _It was his fourth self that spoke next. "I had an opportunity to stop the Daleks in their infancy. I was a fool! Because I hesitated, the Time War began, and you were born! You make me sick, you abomination!"_

 _His seventh self stepped forward, solemn and grim. "The Doctor's memory has been defiled forever. The defiler is here. We consign you, monster...to eternal damnation. May hatred mark you forever, and all those who come after you!"_

 _The old man to whom they spoke said nothing in his defense, for he knew they were right, as Hell devoured him..._

OOOOOOOO

He sat bolt upright in his bed, on which he had collapsed into tormented sleep hours ago. Sweat mingled with his tears; the beating of his hearts exploded like thunder in his ears. His last self had not been the Doctor, and sitting there alone in the dark, he decided that this new form could never be the Doctor either.

"Grandfather?" His head spun at the sound of the voice from the shadows, a voice so very familiar but painfully impossible now. It couldn't be; he was the last of them all. Then he saw movement in the darkness ahead of him; the small, slender figure of a girl on the verge of womanhood stepped forward into the soft splash of light cast by the lamp at the side of his bed, her short hair black and her eyes bright with joy as she saw him. "There you are, Grandfather," she said.

He could barely breath as he stared back at her. "Susan?" His voice cracked. "You can't really be here, can you? I lost you so long ago now...I never thought I'd see you again."

Susan sat beside him on the bed and gently held his face in her hands, looking deep into his red-rimmed eyes. "I can't stay here long, Grandfather," she told him. "But you must listen: I need you to be strong, like you were when we left Gallifrey and only had one another for such a long time. I never would have coped as long as I did without you being the Doctor...and time and space still need the Doctor."

"Then someone else'll have to be the Doctor," he responded bitterly.

Susan's smile was small and sad, but beautiful as she spoke. "Please remember, Grandfather, what you said once...No tears, no anxieties...Just go forward in all your beliefs...and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine."

And then she was gone, leaving him alone once more, faded back into his memories where she would always be.

OOOOOOOO

He was wearing black boots, black pants, a black shirt, and a black leather jacket similar to one worn by his eighth self for a while, when he strode into the TARDIS control room some time later. "I'll never let you down, Susan," he said as he stood over the console. "The Doctor is back...and is gonna do his damn best to be fantastic."

 _ **It's far from being all over.**_


End file.
